Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education and their education situation; this way of thinking is thought
social movement that has developed and applied concepts by practitioners of critical pedagogy to allow them to
from critical theory and related traditions to the eld of recognize connections between their individual prob-
education and the study of culture.[1] Advocates of criti- lems and experiences and the social contexts in which
cal pedagogy view teaching as an inherently political act, they are embedded.[4] Realizing ones consciousness
reject the neutrality of knowledge, and insist that issues ("conscientization, "conscientizao) is then a needed
of social justice and democracy itself are not distinct rst step of "praxis, which is dened as the power and
from acts of teaching and learning. The goal of criti- know-how to take action against oppression while stress-
cal pedagogy is emancipation from oppression through ing the importance of liberating education. Praxis in-
an awakening of the critical consciousness, based on the volves engaging in a cycle of theory, application, evalua-
Portuguese term conscientizao. When achieved, critical tion, reection, and then back to theory. Social transfor-
consciousness encourages individuals to aect change in mation is the product of praxis at the collective level.[4]
their world through social critique and political action. Critical pedagogue Ira Shor, who was mentored by and
worked closely with Freire from 1980 until Freires death
in 1997,[5] denes critical pedagogy as:
1 Background
Habits of thought, reading, writing, and
The concept of critical pedagogy can be traced back to speaking which go beneath surface meaning,
Paulo Freire's best-known 1968 work, The Pedagogy of rst impressions, dominant myths, ocial pro-
the Oppressed. Freire, a professor of history and the nouncements, traditional clichs, received wis-
philosophy of education at the University of Recife in dom, and mere opinions, to understand the
Brazil, sought in this and other works to develop a phi- deep meaning, root causes, social context, ide-
losophy of adult education that demonstrated a solidar- ology, and personal consequences of any ac-
ity with the poor in their common struggle to survive by tion, event, object, process, organization, ex-
engaging them in a dialogue of greater awareness and perience, text, subject matter, policy, mass
analysis.[2] Although his family had suered loss and media, or discourse. (Empowering Education,
hunger during the Great Depression, the poor viewed him 129)
and his formerly middle-class family as people from an-
other world who happened to fall accidentally into their
Critical pedagogy explores the dialogic relationships be-
world.[3] His intimate discovery of class and their bor- tween teaching and learning. Its proponents claim that it
ders led, invariably, to Freires radical rejection of a
is a continuous process of what they call unlearning,
class-based society.[3] learning, and relearning, reection, evaluation,
The inuential works of Freire made him arguably the and the eect that these actions have on the students, in
most celebrated critical educator. He seldom used the particular students whom they believe have been histori-
term critical pedagogy himself when describing this cally and continue to be disenfranchised by what they call
philosophy. His initial focus targeted adult literacy traditional schooling.
projects in Brazil and later was adapted to deal with a wideThe educational philosophy has since been developed by
range of social and educational issues. Freires pedagogy Henry Giroux and others since the 1980s as a praxis-
revolved around an anti-authoritarian and interactive ap- oriented educational movement, guided by passion and
proach aimed to examine issues of relational power for principle, to help students develop a consciousness of
students and workers.[11] The center of the curriculum freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and con-
used the fundamental goal based on social and political nect knowledge to power and the ability to take construc-
critiques of everyday life. Freires praxis required imple- tive action.[6] Freire wrote the introduction to his 1988
mentation of a range of educational practices and pro- work, Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Peda-
cesses with the goal of creating not only a better learning gogy of Learning. Another leading critical pedagogy the-
environment but also a better world. Freire himself main- orist who Freire called his intellectual cousin,[7] Peter
tained that this was not merely an educational technique McLaren, wrote the forward. McLaren and Giroux co-
but a way of living in our educative practice.[12] edited one book on critical pedagogy and co-authored
Freire endorses students ability to think critically about another in the 1990s. Among its other leading gures
1
2 2 DEVELOPMENTS
in no particular order are Michael Apple, bell hooks promote anti-intellectualism, promotes a more balanced
(Gloria Jean Watkins), Joe L. Kincheloe, Patti Lather, approach to education than postmodernists.[8]
Antonia Darder, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Peter McLaren,
Joe L. Kincheloe, Howard Zinn, Donaldo Macedo, Sandy We cannot simply attempt to cultivate the
Grande, and Stephanie Ledesma. Educationalists in- intellect without changing the unjust social
cluding Jonathan Kozol and Parker Palmer are some- context in which such minds operate. Critical
times included in this category. Other critical pedagogues educators cannot just work to change the social
known more for their Anti-schooling, unschooling, or order without helping to educate a knowledge-
deschooling perspectives include Ivan Illich, John Holt, able and skillful group of students. Creating a
Ira Shor, John Taylor Gatto, and Matt Hern. just, progressive, creative, and democratic so-
Critical pedagogy has several other strands and ciety demands both dimensions of this peda-
foundations. [8]
Postmodern, anti-racist, feminist, gogical progress.
postcolonial, and queer theories all play a role in further
expanding and enriching Freires original ideas about a One of the major texts taking up the intersection be-
critical pedagogy, shifting its main focus on social class tween critical pedagogy and Indigenous knowledge(s) is
to include issues pertaining to religion, military identi- Sandy Grandes, Red Pedagogy: Native American Social
cation, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, and Political Thought (Rowman and Littleeld, 2004). In
and age. Much of the work also draws on anarchism, agreement with this perspective, Four Arrows, aka Don
Gyrgy Lukcs, Wilhelm Reich, postcolonialism, and Trent Jacobs, challenges the anthropocentrism of criti-
the discourse theories of Edward Said, Antonio Gramsci, cal pedagogy and writes that to achieve its transformative
Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault. Radical Teacher is goals there are other dierences between Western and In-
a magazine dedicated to critical pedagogy and issues of digenous worldview that must be considered.[12][13] Ap-
interest to critical educators. Many contemporary critical proaching the intersection of Indigenous perspectives and
pedagogues have embraced Postmodern, anti-essentialist pedagogy from another perspective, critical pedagogy of
perspectives of the individual, of language, and of place examines the impacts of place.
power, while at the same time retaining the Freirean
emphasis on critique, disrupting oppressive regimes of
power/knowledge, and social change.[4] 2.1 In the Classroom
As mentioned briey in the above, Ira Shor, a professor at
the City University of New York, provides for an exam-
2 Developments ple of how critical pedagogy is used in the classroom. He
develops these themes in looking at the use of Freirean
Like Critical theory itself, the eld of critical pedagogy teaching methods in the context of the everyday life of
continues to evolve.[8] Contemporary critical educators, classrooms, in particular, institutional settings. He sug-
such as bell hooks and Peter McLaren, discuss in their gests that the whole curriculum of the classroom must be
criticisms the inuence of many varied concerns, insti- re-examined and reconstructed. He favors a change of
tutions, and social structures, including globalization, role of the student from object to active, critical subject.
the mass media, and race/spiritual relations, while cit- In doing so, he suggests that students undergo a struggle
ing reasons for resisting the possibilities to change.[4] for ownership of themselves. He states that students have
McLaren has developed a social movement based ver- previously been lulled into a sense of complacency by the
sion of critical pedagogy that he calls revolutionary crit- circumstances of everyday life and that through the pro-
ical pedagogy, emphasizing critical pedagogy as a social cesses of the classroom, they can begin to envision and
movement for the creation of a democratic socialist alter- strive for something dierent for themselves.
native to capitalism.[9][10] Of course, achieving such a goal is not automatic nor easy,
Joe L. Kincheloe and Shirley R. Steinberg have created as he suggests that the role of the teacher is critical to this
the Paulo and Nita Freire Project for International Critical process. Students need to be helped by teachers to sep-
Pedagogy at McGill University.[11] In line with Kinche- arate themselves from unconditional acceptance of the
loe and Steinbergs contributions to critical pedagogy, the conditions of their own existence. Once this separation
project attempts to move the eld to the next phase of its is achieved, then students may be prepared for critical re-
evolution. In this second phase, critical pedagogy seeks entry into an examination of everyday life. In a classroom
to become a worldwide, decolonizing movement dedi- environment that achieves such liberating intent, one of
cated to listening to and learning from diverse discourses the potential outcomes is that the students themselves as-
of people from around the planet. Kincheloe and Stein- sume more responsibility for the class. Power is thus dis-
berg also embrace Indigenous knowledges in education as tributed amongst the group and the role of the teacher
a way to expand critical pedagogy and to question educa- becomes much more mobile, not to mention more chal-
tional hegemony. Joe L. Kincheloe, in expanding on the lenging. This encourages the growth of each students in-
Freires notion that a pursuit of social change alone could tellectual character rather than a mere mimicry of the
3
depth of information and historical compe- examination of religious, military, political, and social
tence that such critical social issues warrant. circumstances in terms of spirit-friendly, humanist, and
Our societys deep and tangled cultural con- democratic ideologies. The eorts of such teachers are
icts can neither be explained nor resolved by credited with having bolstered student resistance and
simplistic ideological formulas[19] . activism.[10]
Social criticism
5 History Student voice
critical pedagogy camp, philosopher Stephen Hicks[26] [8] Kincheloe, Joe (2008) Critical Pedagogy Primer. New
describes the motives and practical of postmodern ed- York: Peter Lang
ucation.
[9] http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/mclaren/
In education, postmodernism rejects the [10] Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy and the Struggle against
notion that the purpose of education is primar- Capital Today: An Interview with Peter McLaren I The
ily to train a childs cognitive capacity for rea- Hampton Institute. www.hamptoninstitution.org. Re-
son in order to produce an adult capable of trieved 2016-11-23.
functioning independently in the world. That [11] The Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy
view of education is replaced with the view that
education is to take an essentially indetermi- [12] Kincheloe, J. & Steinberg, S. (2008) Indigenous Knowl-
nate being and give it a social identity. Educa- edges in Education: Complexities, Dangers, and Profound
tions method of molding is linguistic, and so Benets in Ed Denzin, N. Handbook of Critical and In-
digenous Methodologies
the language to be used is that which will cre-
ate a human being sensitive to its racial, sex- [13] Four Arrows (2011) Diering Worldviews: Two Scholars
ual, and class identity. Our current social con- Argue Cooperatively about Justice Education (Sense)
text, however, is characterized by oppression
that benets whites, males, and the rich at the [14] Shor, I. (1980). Critical Teaching and Everyday Life.
Boston, Massachusetts: South End Press.
expense of everyone else. That oppression in
turn leads to an educational system that reects [15] Schon, Donald, A. (1995). THE NEW SCHOLARSHIP
only or primarily the interests of those in posi- REQUIRES A NEW EPISTEMOLOGY. Change. 27.
tions of power. To counteract that bias, educa-
tional practice must be recast totally. Postmod- [16] http://www.infed.org/thinkers/hooks.htm
ern education should emphasize works not in [17] Seas, Kristen (2006). Enthymematic Rhetoric and Stu-
the canon; it should focus on the achievements dent Resistance to Critical Pedagogies. Rhetoric Review.
of non-whites, females, and the poor; it should (25) 4: 429 via JSTOR.
highlight the historical crimes of whites, males,
and the rich; and it should teach students that [18] Kopelson, Karen (2003). Rhetoric on the edge of cun-
ning: Or, the performance of neutrality (re) considered as
sciences method has no better claim to yield-
a composition pedagogy for student resistance. College
ing truth than any other method and, accord-
Composition and Communication: 119.
ingly, that students should be equally receptive
to alternative ways of knowing. [19] Hairston, Maxine (1992). Diversity, ideology, and teach-
ing writing.. College Composition and Communication.
43(2): 179193.
8 References [20] O'Dair, Sharon (2003). Class work: Site of egalitarian
activism or site of embourgeoisement?". College English:
[1] Kincheloe, Joe; Steinburg, Shirley (1997). Changing Mul- 593606.
ticulturalism. Bristol, PA: Open University Press. p.
24. Critical pedagogy is the term used to describe what [21] Smith, Smith (1997). Students Goals, Gatekeeping, and
emerges when critical theory encounters education Some Questions of Ethics. College English. 59: 299
320.
[2] Salmani Nodoushan, M. A., & Daftarifard, P. (2011).
Globalized classroom, emancipatory competence, and [22] Bartolom, Lilia (2004). Critical Pedagogy and Teacher
critical pedagogy: A paradigm shift. In R. V. Nata (Ed.), Education: Radicalizing Prospective Teachers (PDF).
Progress in Education, (pp. 147-162). New York: Nova Teacher Education Quarterly. Winter: 97122 via
Science Publishers, Inc. teqjournal.
[3] Freire, Paulo (2009). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. [23] Understanding Implicit Bias. kirwaninstitute.osu.edu.
New York, NY: The Continuum International Publishing Retrieved 2016-11-23.
Group Inc. ISBN 0-8264-1276-9.
[24] Searle, John. (1990) The Storm Over the University, The
[4] Critical Pedagogy on the Web New York Review of Books, December 6, 1990.
[5] Ira Shor. English Department. Retrieved 2016-11-22. [25] Dewey, John. (1938). Experience and Education.
[6] Giroux, H. (October 27, 2010) Lessons From Paulo [26] Hicks, Stephen R.C. (2004) Explaining Postmodernism:
Freire, Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.
10/20/10. Tempe, AZ: Scholargy Press, ISBN 1-59247-646-5, pp.
18-19.
[7] philcsc (2016-01-09). Foreword to Peter McLarens
PEDAGOGY OF INSURRECTION. THE PHILIP-
PINES MATRIX PROJECT. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
6 9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES
9.2 Images
File:Nuvola_apps_bookcase.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Nuvola_apps_bookcase.svg Li-
cense: LGPL Contributors: The source code of this SVG is <a data-x-rel='nofollow' class='external text' href='//validator.
w3.org/check?uri=https%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%3AFilepath%2FNuvola_apps_bookcase.
svg,<span>,&,</span>,ss=1#source'>valid</a>. Original artist: Peter Kemp